Lupita Jones is a businesswoman, writer and UN Goodwill Ambassador for Women's Rights. However, her professional career has taken a back seat in the Mexican elections, with the press and her opponents pigeonholing her as a beauty queen, a contest she won in 1991.

Thirty years after this event, the candidate of the Va por Mexico Coalition is running for governor of the Mexican state of Baja California. 

Currently, many media and politicians use her catwalk past as a way to disqualify her for political office.

"I was a victim of certain attacks that I consider political violence on the basis of gender by pretending to maintain a stereotype about me as a person. (But now) I have the opportunity to show that as a beauty queen we have the capacity to continue growing," she said Sunday in an interview with EFE. It shone a light on the difficulty faced by many women who find themselves in the political arena.

Jones is running in opposition to the National Regeneration Movement (Morena, left), party of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The current ruling party has generated much criticism regarding its stance on women's rights and the feminist movement, which has been highly critical of the candidates. 

Jones has directed the Mexicana Universal contest since 1994, and is proud to emphasize that from there she has begun to take action to generate changes and improvements in the condition of women. The businesswoman says that her work in these beauty pageants was focused on generating a platform for the integral, personal and professional development of Mexican women. 

Lupita received invitations from various Mexican political parties but none of them convinced her because her interest has always been to govern the state where she grew up, "the proposals that I am developing and offering to the citizens go hand in hand with what I have been receiving. (And they are) related to this request for attention to so many things that have been abandoned in Baja California for years," she affirmed.